The Spellslinger is a quick paced proactive healer. Spellslinger excel at quickly providing heals over a large range. Spellslinger have a multitude of heals designed to mitigated damage before it is applied as well as quickly recover hp once it is lost. This is done through their many instant cast abilities and absorb heals.

Innate (Spell Surge)

The Spellslinger innate is Spell Power, spell power regenerates at a rate of 3.33 / second and caps at 100.

Using an ability while spell surge is active will reduces spell power by 25, additionally that ability will be cast with a bonus effect noted in the spell's tooltip. If the spell does not have any additional effects the spell power will not be consumed.

Spell surge should always remain active. If it happens to turn off because it is reduced below 25 spell power, immediately reactivate it once it reaches 25. Every ability used as a Spellslinger will be and is supposed to be used while spell surge is active.

Focus Management

Spellslinger are the most focus intensive healers. Without proper focus management focus will quickly be depleted and you will become worthless.

For the most part focus management is handled purely outside of combat (Gear/AMPs). Different encounters require different amounts of healing. one fight you'll be required to heal massive amounts of raid damage for 5min straight, others could be very light healing over 2mins. you should have your gear prepared for the former. the only choice beyond that is if you need to run Gather Focus (Ability) or not for that extra focus boost.

Contains 3 interrupts, a cc break, a cleanse and has all the fundamental heals

Last slot can be used for any personally preferred ability (Void Spring, Healing Torrent, Regen Pulse, Void Pact, etc)

More comfortable players can remove Homeward Bound (AMP) right out and opt for Crit Sev, Void Pact or Desperation for more Focus

Note this build does not include Hyper Shield. Hyper Shield is worthless for a new player with low support power and low crit chance, new or low geared players should avoid Hyper Shield.

Runic Healing vs Vitality Burst. Runic Healing is a point and hold heal that is focus efficient and easy to use for new players, however if you are planning to raid swap Runic Healing for Vitality Burst (Tier 8). Vitality burst does less single target healing but should have no effect on dungeon/adventure healing. This will prepare you for raiding where Runic is worthless and Vitality Burst is always necessary.

Raids

Every encounter in GA and DS will use 4 basic abilities. VB, Sustain, RoP and VP for Void Pact builds. These abilities are the basis for every build. Abilities beyond those 4 are either personal preferences or requirements for the encounter such as extra heals, CC breaks, cleanses, interrupts, etc.

The total HPS of VB does not increase linearly with its charges. higher charges incur worse and worse cooldowns without equally increased healing.

Using only C1 it gives the freedom to heal multiple targets in a quick succession. If less than 5 targets have been damaged or each player that is damaged is within a short distance between one another then VB is the proper ability to use.

Sustain ~ C1 for small raid damage, C2 for large predictable damage

Sustain has 2 charges but unlike VB there are benefits to both charges. charge 2 has twice as long of a cooldown as charge 1 but it heals for nearly double the amount.

C1 is used to quickly heal small amounts of damage because of its an instant cast and has a 3sec cooldown. C2 is used to heal significant amounts of raid wide damage but requires a 0.9 sec cast time and incurs a 6sec cooldown. It is important to know before hand when large amounts of raid wide damage will occur so that the C2 can be charged before the damage is applied and released it as quickly as possible.

using a C2 when C1 is better suited will cause overhealing and incur a unnecessarily longer cooldown. Using a C1 in place of a C2 could cause a player to die from lack of healing. knowing the difference will increase survivabilty and make your life easier

Runes of Protection ~ Use to mitigate incoming attack or create a buffer of time to fully heal a critically injured ally

Runes of protection is used to mitigate incoming damage by increase the max amount of damage a player can take before dying or to provide a buffer in order to heal the target.

RoP is instant cast, this makes RoP great for saving lives and using in a pinch. The most effective way to use RoP is to use it before the damage is applied, otherwise use RoP as a buffer. If another player is low on hp, use RoP to take the brunt of the damage while topping the player off with other heals.

Do not spam RoP, use it sparingly so that it might be up when needed most.

Healing Salve ~ Keep 100% uptime

Healing salve acts like a HoT but this buff only procs a heal whenever the player takes damage (limited to once every 2 sec and 1 sec at Tier 4). Salve is the best way to mitigate raid wide damage that exists for any healer class.

Keep the salve up 100% of the time for the greatest amount of mitigation

you are vulnerable while casting salve so make sure no one is in immediate danger before casting. there is a 2 second overlap between salve is off cooldown and the buff wears out, dont cast it immediately off cooldown make sure your party is safe and use the entire 2sec window to ensure a safe cast

Positioningstanding in the most ideal position is your greatest asset for improving your healing output. poor positioning not only puts yourself in danger of enemy telegraphs but shortens your reaction and delivery time on healing. having to re-position to heal an ally is wasteful.

Your first and foremost priority with positioning is to not die. do not stand in a position that make it more difficult to avoid enemy telegraphs. this varies from fight to fight but in general maintain a loose spread, enough so that you can see your own feet.

Maintain a position with as many allies in front of you as possible and within 25m. having to pivot to see or heal injured allies increase the time between an ally being damaged and you healing them.

be aware of target caps for Runes of Protection. it is the best life saving skill we have and it only hits 4 other allies, re-position yourself to prevent RoP from being eaten by others

Understand The Fightknowing when an attack will occur, who it will hit and how much damage it will deal is the difference between being a shitty healer and being the best healer. being able to predict damage gives you a massive lead on healing and trivializes encounters.

for each encounter know when to use C1 or C2 sustains depending on the amount damage

sync your healing with the timers of the bosses auto attacks and abilities. make sure you are not casting healing salve when you should be prepping a C2 sustain for raid wide damage. VB can be cast every 1 second make sure it is staggered with the bosses auto attacks for more effective healing

know your problem child or children. save heals for them. prime example is x-89. keep RoP for when an ally gets small bomb and is running it during a spew cast. if you know a mechanic is coming you should know what you must prepare to mitigate it.

UI

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Threat Meter or Target of TargetKnowing who is about to have threat and who currently has threat is a big deal, dumb dps can pull and dumb tanks and lose threat, doesnt mean you have to wipe.

Dispel-able debuffs on Nameplatesyou need these, if you cant see debuffs on your allies add the option in your nameplates, if there is no option get new nameplates.

Always show nameplates or Namesif you cannot see your allies before they get hit you are a terrible healer. personally i have nameplate bars showing at all times, but anything will work so long as you can identify your allies and where they are before they are damaged. additionally it will be easier for you to cleanse if you can quickly count how many people are between the target and you.

Interrupter (Add-on)shows when casts are going off without needing to target the boss, this helps you to interrupt properly as well as exactly time when a ability will damage allies, which is extremely important for mitigating damage (prepping C2 sustains, using RoP, getting Salve off before the cast, etc.)

Tricks

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Void Spring ~ Instant Cast

Void Spring requires two casts, one to activate the placement telegraph and the other to place it. currently there is a 0.2 sec GCD between these two actions that make Void Spring feel sluggish. There are two methods to avoid this 0.2 sec GCD.

Instead of using a second key press, instead use left mouse click to place it.

or hide the GCD inside of another cast. the first key press to activate the placement telegraph can be used at any time, even during other spell casts. use void spring during a cast longer than 0.2 sec then use it again after the cast and it will avoid the GCD. Personally i use salve, gather focus and sustain C2.

Cancel Casting / Precasting

Precast larger cast time heals in order to quickly recover health to the target. This is especially useful on Gloomclaw and Lattice but can be applied to any boss with a large damaging ability with a known timer.

Begin to cast and if it comes close to finishing before the target is hit cancel and begin casting again. this is in order to shorten the length of time between when the target is damaged and full hp, it is an alternative to mitigating the damage with RoP. casts can be cancel four ways; jumping, sprinting, dashing, pressing esc.

Although Crit does proc Hyper Shield the increase in proc chance is outweighed by the contribution of multi-hit to overall healing output. in essence it is easier for me to increase my overall healing by 2% than it is to increase the frequency of Hyper Shield to mimic the same effect

Why no Intensity?

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We are focus starved as is and we can get more output healing by focusing on multi-hit than on intensity+focus to balance it out

How high should my focus recovery rate be?

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5 minutes.

With the induction of Focus Pool as a runeable stat you are not looking for a target Focus Recovery Rate, instead you are looking at a Time To Live(TTL) for your focus through a combination of Focus Recovery Rate and Max Focus Pool.

Cynosure: our main rune set. It provides Multi-Hit and Focus Recovery which are both important stats, but the most important aspect of Cynosure is its 3 and 5 set bonuses. Percent Focus Pool is our largest contributor towards increased Focus Time To Live.

Resurgence: our best supplementary set. it provides our much required Focus Pool, but its 3 and 5 set bonuses are weak and we do not want to prioritize Crit over Multi-Hit. Which is why it is supplementary.

Prevention (Class Set): an amazing set, it allows us to spam RoP, provides a little bit of focus recovery and has near perfect stat choices.

Surge Life (Class Set): a terrible set, it has Multi-Hit and Crit and its 4 set bonus is decent but the 8 set bonus is completely worthless until a rework and it provides no focus recovery only Intensity as an option which we should avoid.

You need 5 healers for this fight ( you could do 4 but that's another story ). there are 3 different positions a slinger can play and each has a different LAS.

Kicker, you are with the main group attacking the corrupted bot, your job is to heal the raid in the area between the boss and the orb as well as kick the orb when the beam passes over the raid.

Raid, you got one job, heal the main group attacking the corrupted bot. you heal anyone and everyone around the bot.

Tank, you are with one of the 2 tanks on the non-corrupted bots. you keep the tank alive, any other people dps the uncorrupted bot with the tank as well as kick the beam when it passes over your group.

VP T4 is stronger than running any other heal at a higher tier, even if another slinger is already running T8

the beginning of each transition phase after the pull in is the only break you have for healing. laydown w/e heals you have left and use gf. using gf any other time is risky and if you miss gf between transitions your focus pool will be hurting.

The beginning of each transition phase after the pull in is the only break you have for healing. laydown w/e heals you have left and use gf. using gf any other time is risky and if you miss gf between transitions your focus pool will be hurting.

Put Voidspring on the group and toe-in only if you are debuffed

Regen Pulse or Healing Torrent, both are viable but HT is the stronger option because it allows for self healing and hits more targets.

Regen Pulse or Healing Torrent, both are viable but HT is the stronger option because it allows for self healing and hits more targets.

Salve T8 is the major player here, it allows you to keep your group and tank topped with little effort, the less you need to worry about your dps getting killed the better you can perform you actual job of kicking the orb and kicking that tank alive.

gate is a must for meeting position requirements and getting you out of a bad situation.

VP is there to increase your healing output, your tank’s threat and your dps’s damage. it is important this cast on cooldown.

Overview

Focus:

Raid/Kicker - Extreme Intensity 10+ Focus/sec

Tank - High Intensity 7-10 Focus/sec

Kicking:

if you are required to kick the orb you are bringing T4 arcane shock. this because it requires 2 kicks to disable the beam, it has a long range, can be blocked except by 5+ small adds and it has an extremely short cooldown so you can cover other players kicks if they mess up. spellslinger healers are the best choice for kickers because of this.

Positioning:

there are 3 healers on the raid and 1 healer on each tank totaling 5 healers.

the positioning for the tank healers is simple, don't stand in between the tank and the valves, don't stand in the red gears and when you have to kick be within arcane shock distance of the orb. when the permanent gears are on the uncorrupted boss you must atleast be in the 3rd gear from the boss to be in kicking distance of the orb.

there are 2 sub-positions for the raid healers, either you are in the kicking position or the you are not.

the kicker stays closest to the orb and generally does not move, because of this they heal everyone between the boss and the orb but they can't reach anyone beyond that point nor should they that is the other 2 healers priority.

non-kickers are free to move about the cabin. they go to wherever the majority of people are to heal them although it's much simpler if one of them stays on the far end of the boss and heals and the other stands in center and helps cover both positions (far end and raid kicker)

Healing:

Damage Sources

Prime Evolutionary Operant (Non-Corrupted)

Digitize (Auto Attack): Unavoidable by the tank, just heal through and make sure you and your dps dont accidently get inbetween the tank and the valves he is trying to shut off.

Prime Phage Distributor (Corrupted)

Corruption Spike (Auto Attack): Ideally no one should be hit by this but people suck so be prepared all you can do is try and preemptively save them with a RoP if you think they will be hit or hope that they dont get crit.

Degeneration (Raid Wide DoT): duration is 7 seconds, there is around 11 seconds of time between each orb kick meaing 4 secs of no raid wide damage, this downtime allows the kicker the freedom to get into position to kick the next beam without worrying his team will die for the 2 sec he is distracted. if a kick is failed the DoT is 15 seconds long, this means about 4 secs of DOUBLE DoT damage. if someone messes up their kick you have plenty of time to prep for massive incoming dmg. a double DoT is not a wipe by any means it just hard to heal.

Fallout (Gears): no one should be taking fallout damage however sometimes you need to roll over a gear to get your kick off or sometimes the tank needs to avoid the lazer, this is okay just use RoP before hand to mitigate the damage.

Strain Injection (Debuff Initial Hit): RoP if the target about to get hit with the debuff is a light armor or not topped off.

Strain Incubation (Debuff DoT): Make sure your salve is up 100%, the voidspring is covering as many people as possible and your VB’s are frequent.

Ruptured Organs (Final Phase Debuff): just make sure you hit as few people as possible with this debuff it can get out of hand quickly.

Sternum Buster (Small Adds)

Bite (Auto Attack): Pay no mind, unless there are 4+ on a single player, then give them extra VBs or an RoP in a worst case.

Organic Incinerator (Orb)

Disintegrate (Lazer): dont touch, tell others the same

Clearing Debuffs, this is when the massive damage goes out. people are all moving around with Debuff and when they clear they take a spike of damage. put a voidspring in the radiation bath location and RoP people before they clear. also watch out people after clearing will be all clumped therefore when the next debuff goes it it will hit multiple people, multiple people already inside of the bath most likely. this means they will take the initial debuff hit followed by an immediate clearing debuff hit. over 10k instant for each person hit. this is the most dangerous healing section of each phase.

RoP is massive, cast it when you need it and not willy nilly.

for raid healing, you will have T4 VP at least (as kicker or raid) this means RoP will have significantly more uptime, however this does not warrant casting it off cooldown.

Use when ally is about to get hit by strain incubation or about to take an auto if you are quick enough.

Use before allies clear their debuff in the radiation bath

Use before the phase transitions and all stacks are cleared

for tank healing RoP is for saving idiots from gear ticks, and your tank for clearing the valves on gear ticks

Sustain C1 only! 100% of the fight damage is going out burst heals are worst than sustained healing and more sustains means more hypershield procs which account for at least 12% of your healing. you can fit 2 VBs exactly between each sustain. do so. your rotation aside from casting RoP,Salve and Voidspring when needed is 2 VBs, 1 Sustain.

Gloom is a very different boss as far as healing is concerned. for this boss 90% of the time is spent healing a logic elemental and how well the raid does is dependent on how effectively the elemental can be healed.

The LAS for gloomclaw should be solely focused on single target burst healing.

The last 3 slots can be filled with Chill for adds, Salve for healing, Void Pact, Arcane Shock, etc. depending on other requirements aside from healing the elemental.

Lattice is similar to Gloomclaw, except when healing the wall. make sure to not overheal. If the wall is close to max instead use vitality bursts over larger heals such as regen pulse and healing torrent.

While healing on Mnemesis just use the standard raid setup, plus a cleanse and void spring.

The last slot can be any heal or utility spell of choice

When healing on Visceralus gather the life orbs before they hit the boss, this will require coordination between yourself and the tank. because of the constant running to grab orbs from the boss it is important to maintain high uptime on salve and astral infusion, while cleansing both yourself and the tank as quickly as possible.

Vitality burst has 3 charge levels, but never use charge 2 or charge 3. Always instant cast it. Vitality burst and Sustain are our bread and butter, keep this at T8 always.

Sustain (Always) (T4 Smart)

0 - 1.8 sec Charge ~ 20m Circle ~ Self + 4 Allies

2 charged ability that does a large raid wide heal. Increasing it from base to T8 gives it a lowest target priority an increased 25m range and a increased target count of 9.

Must have ability for raiding. Always T8 this when running it and always run it. It is our best raid wide heal.

Healing Salve (Sometimes)

1.3 sec cast ~ 20m Circle ~ Self + 9 Allies

Buffs targets, when allies are hit it procs a heal

Keep this buff up at all times, it helps alleviate damage. the T4 doubles its effectiveness on some fights.

Runes of Protection (Always)

Instant ~ 35m Line ~ Self + 4 Allies

Provides a large absorb

This is the “oh shit!” heal. When someone is low hp and there isn't time to cast another heal or they are about to get hit by another large strike use this! A must have for any healing build.

Void Spring (Sometimes) (Smart)

Instant Cast ~ 25m range, 10m Circle ~ Lowest 10 Allies

Places a beneficial circle telegraph that heals allies each second.

Great heal if targets remain stationary. T4 provides an increase to healing done to targets within the heal, this is very useful for high intensity stationary healing fights. Mobile/Large Spread fights are the bane of Void Spring.

Healing Torrent (Sometimes) (Smart)

1.3 sec cast ~ 35m Line ~ Lowest Self + 4 Allies

Long ranged big heal

Best used to quickly heal heavily damaged targets that are not in danger of another attack due to the 1.3sec cast time. Try pre-casting this ability before a large hit for a quicker heal. Not a commonly used heal because of the AMP unlock requirement, however it is extremely useful for low target burst healing fights.

Regenerative Pulse (Sometimes) (Smart)

Instant Cast ~ 35m Line ~ Lowest Ally

Quick single target heal

Similar to Healing Torrent but provides a quicker heal to only a single target. Used only to provide immediate high single target burst healing, best used on stationary targets due to its narrow telegraph.

Runic Healing (Niche) (Smart)

2 sec Channel ~ 25m Cone ~ Lowest Ally or Self

Provides high single target healing

While T8 increase the target count to 2 and runic healing is our strongest spammable single target heal it lacks utility and total healing power of vitality burst. Runic should not be used, instead use vitality burst.

Astral Infusion (Niche) (Smart)

Instant ~ 25m Cone ~ Lowest Self + 1 Ally

Gives a HoT. At the end of the HoT it provides an absorb.

The T8 can prevent 1 shot abilities however this is never used because of it requires too many ability points better spent elsewhere.

Dual Fire (Never)

1.6 sec cast ~ 25m Cone ~ 5 Foes, 5 Allies

Simultaneous Heal/Damage ability

It has a long cast time, doesn't self heal and provides both minimal healing and minimal damage. Do not use this.

Utility AbilitiesNote: 1 Spellslinger has to have Void Pact T8.

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Gate (Interrupt) (Movement)

Movement ability that stuns and removes 1 interrupt armor

Used primarily for movement in raids since it can place place you in a bad position, if an interrupt is required use Arcane Shock instead.

Void Slip (Niche) (CC Break)

CC Break

Generally not used unless required since enemy telegraphs cannot be seen while in the void which can result in death.

Arcane Shock (Interrupt)

1 interrupt

T4: 2 interrupts

One of the best interrupts in the game due to its low cooldown, 5 target count and massive 35m range.

Purify (Cleanse)

Cleanses 2 Debuffs from yourself and 4 allies

Purify is not a smart heal, therefore it will prioritize the closest targets regardless if they have debuffs or not.

Void Pact (Raid Buff)

20m raid buff, increase AP/SP by 15% and increase movement speed

fantastic raid buff, make sure at least 1 person has it or that it remains active 100% of the time.

Gather Focus (Focus)

Recovers focus and spell power at the cost of reduced healing for a short duration

Used for focus management depending on how focus intensive the fight is.

Below is a brief summary of important AMPs for healing and my input on whether they are good or bad, if you know what each amp does and don't care about my input skip this section.

When AMPing out your action set top priority is focus management, followed by increased healing output. this means getting AMPs such as gather focus, readiness, focus cost and focus recovery take precedence until encounters can reliably be healed without running out of focus.

Velzanna wrote:Hey there. WIth the nerf to the furion runes, is there even a point anymore is some (like Guardian Angel)? Would a flat stat rune be better that... this?

Good Question! "guardian angel" is now weaker than both "life force" and "virtuous circle" even in ideal conditions (a tightly stacked raid). as far as the choice between "Life Force" and "Virtuous Circle" they are both neck and neck in throughput. however id personally choose "Virtuous Circle".

Its worth noting that you should refrain from doing any rune changes till the next patch (estimate 11/10/2015) as it will be significantly cheaper. hence why i haven't made any changes to the guide as to not panic anyone into spending plat.

no builds have changed. C1 VB still > C2 or C3 by a large margin. swap guardian out for either of the 2 fusions for chest. go life force if you are fine on focus and virtuous circle if you aren't.

only slight difference is we might use C2/C3 VB for gloom / lattice / skele but absolutely nothing else.

its important to note that while C1 VB does less healing now. C2 and C3 are sooooo bad that not even the CD reduction change make them provide more or even equal HPS to C1. on top of that because of how GCD's work its not even worth weaving C2 VBs before sustain casts.

Velzanna wrote:How bad will it be with Life Force focus wise? I'm not suffering atm, but have some concerns about that 1000 intensity...

are you above 35% focus at the end of each boss encounter? if yes you are fine to take life force. note if you take life force and notice you are below 30% focus during a fight you should not use life force. it is only useful if the intensity part is active, so above 30%.

First, thanks for the great guide CK. Do you mind explaining your method for testing various builds? Do you just use the combat log? The raid dummy makes it very easy to visualize changes in DPS builds but when I want to try a new healing build I don't know where to start.